


Le flâneur passe une bonne journée

by genarti



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: 19th century dudes trying to be feminist with mixed success, Banter, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Friendship, Gen, Romantics historical and fictional, background OCs - Freeform, lounging about Paris, most of the Amis in minor roles, romantics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 00:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/pseuds/genarti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bahorel: a day in the life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Le flâneur passe une bonne journée

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheFlameThatNeverDies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFlameThatNeverDies/gifts).



> Thanks to my betas and writing buddies, both online and otherwise!

Bahorel woke with the dawn, as he nearly always did. He was warm and comfortable despite February's chill, thanks to two thick blankets of good wool and his mistress's plump body curled against his left side. He attempted to stretch, and was arrested by the realization that there was another, bonier body's warmth against his right side, and an elbow digging into his stomach. This was more unusual, though not wholly unprecedented. He opened his eyes.

The shaggy shape on his right resolved itself into Jehan Prouvaire's head, in desperate need of a haircut as usual, and still marred by the scraggly brush of his latest attempt to grow a beard. He was fast asleep.

Bahorel laughed to himself. That _had_ been an excellent party last night, he thought. He had a distant recollection now of several others distributing themselves about his rooms in various states of intoxication and undress, in improvised sleeping locations, where they doubtless till lay.

That mystery solved, there remained the difficulty of extricating himself from his bed partners. Bahorel was no good at lazing abed, and never had been. Besides that, his arm was beginning to go to pins and needles under Jehan's skull. (The living one, that was. The one which had originally belonged to another soul, and which had been Byronically fashioned into a memento mori of a chalice after the manner of Nerval's, lay in a puddle of wine-dregs in Bahorel's washbasin.) He gave them both a few minutes, out of the goodness of his heart. When boredom conquered generosity, he remarked conversationally to the ceiling, "I'm getting up now. You can do as you like."

Sophie, well accustomed to his morning habits, and an early riser herself, reacted only by rolling a little away. After a moment she roused further to tug the pillow from beneath Bahorel's head and add it to her own.

Jehan merely made a sleepy grumbling noise, tucked himself a little closer, and began to snore.

Well, he had been warned. Bahorel sat up, dislodging Jehan unceremoniously. He could see now that he had been correct: Gautier and Mac-Keat were piled upon the divan, under that heap of drapery Marie-Pierre Routhier had called a costume last night, and Martin was slumped in the corner with his coat for a pillow. Marie-Pierre herself had, he presumed, either gone home in a borrowed overcoat or made her bed in the bathtub.

Jehan had opened his eyes, or so Bahorel judged from the pitiable groan that had just sounded by his elbow. He glanced back to see him scrabbling for a pillow which wasn't there; failing to find it, he yanked the blankets up over his head. Bahorel cheerfully thanked both the Supreme Being (if such a creature existed) and the far more certain benefit of his peasant upbringing for his own apparent immunity to hangovers, and set about extricating himself from the bed. Jehan muttered something which was doubtless laden with invective, though the only words discernable through the blankets were 'bright' and 'bastard.'

"So's your mother," answered Bahorel, which had the desired effect of spurring Jehan to uncover one bloodshot eye enough for a glare. It was lamentably kittenish, but Bahorel magnanimously granted him the handicap of his hangover. He laughed and stretched his arms upward, feeling his shoulders pop.

"Shut up, both of you, and let a girl sleep," Sophie mumbled into her stack of pillows.

"You are an unfeeling monster," Jehan informed him in a raspy whisper, ignoring Sophie. "You have no respect for suffering. Eugh, how my head pounds. Why do you never draw the curtains?"

"I have nothing to be ashamed of." Bahorel stretched again, more pointedly this time. Sophie, her back to them both, snorted, which Bahorel chose to interpret as agreement rather than amusement. "Besides that, I would miss the sunlight. Come, Jehan! Surely you cannot want to miss the dawn? Tsk! A grave error of symbolism. Enjolras would lecture you on its virtues at marvelous length. I shall ask him to do so."

"I prefer midnight," said Jehan, and yanked the covers back over his head. Bahorel cackled and went to wash.

By the time he had removed the skull chalice from the washstand, washed, shaved, verified that Mlle Routhier was indeed asleep in the bathtub, and changed into clean clothing, Jehan had dragged himself to a seated position, albeit one supported by the headboard. Sophie had claimed a greater share of the blankets in consequence. She was awake, if still bleary-eyed. Since she had had the good taste to ogle him while he dressed, Bahorel elected not to bother her with conversation just yet. Thus he inflicted himself on Jehan instead.

"And so, Jehan Prouvaire, you emerge from your cocoon! A most singular butterfly. Our naturalist would be astonished. You are indeed metamorphosed: Ovid wipes away a proud tear. Bacchus beams with satisfaction. I have never seen you quite so red of eye, nor so thoroughly disreputable." He held up two waistcoats. "Burgundy or maroon, do you think?"

"Maroon," said Jehan, without looking.

"Burgundy it is."

Jehan snorted, and then winced. Bahorel occupied himself with buttoning up his waistcoat. It was new, and really very fine: the deep burgundy silk was brocaded with golden flames and a diamond lattice like lantern-glass. It would match his new blue coat excellently. The aggressively tricolored whole would, however, be obliged to be covered with an overcoat; a tragedy, but if the wind was weak he might manage to leave the overcoat hanging open without taking a chill. He opened his mouth to provide commentary on his tailor's merits.

"Hercule," called Sophie without rolling over, "either be a darling and fetch coffee from somewhere, or be a darling and shut up until at least nine o'clock."

"I will do coffee one better. I shall take you both to breakfast, if you're willing to drag yourselves upright for it. These other louts can fend for themselves."

Sophie laughed in surprise, and pushed herself up on her elbows. "You shall not! My allowance is in too -- and very generous it is, my parents must be snubbing poor Pierre again. It's lovely to be the prodigal daughter. _Omnibus factis, carissima est_. But the point remains. Men treating ladies is an inherently hierarchical and unequal custom, and I refuse to have a part in it. Are you breaking our contract _again_ , Hercule?"

Bahorel paused to consider his answer, since breaking the minor clauses often led to quite enjoyable reparations later, as well as providing satisfaction to his anti-lawyerly soul. 

Jehan broke in. "Well, I am no lady, and Hercule may buy _me_ breakfast without a qualm. --Perhaps a light breakfast," he amended, looking rather green. "I consider it a recompense for the hellish racket he keeps making."

"Embrace your suffering, my dear," Sophie advised. "Soon I will cease to believe that you're a poet at all. I insist upon whining in rhyming couplets, at least." While Jehan was still flushed and sputtering, she added, "Particularly as that logic was both pragmatic and compelling. I shall do likewise. Please don't take this as an invitation to make all the noise you like, my love. Did you leave any water for the rest of us to wash with?"

* * *

They breakfasted on bread and withered apples and chicken stewed with leeks at the Café Ursule, which had the advantage of proximity. It had as well the advantage of a name which never failed to make Bahorel laugh inwardly at the thought of Courfeyrac's skittish friend and his lovelorn sighing. A bottle of wine, shared congenially, succeeded and supplemented the promised coffee. 

Café Ursule's coffee was, in those days as today, sadly over-brewed and exceedingly strong. Bahorel, casting an eye to his companions' hangovers, had selected the venue in significant part for that reason. Sophie had laughed and added twice her usual quantity of sugar. Prouvaire had lately taken to avoiding sugar as a product of slavery and exploitation in the warmer climes, unless he was quite certain it had come from French beets instead. He had taken his coffee black, and made quite hilarious grimaces whenever he tasted it. Still, he gulped two cupfuls down eagerly enough. Bahorel, for his part, had in childhood when the blockades impeded trade from the West Indies developed a taste for bitter café au lait. He drank one cup quite happily, and thereafter stuck to wine.

Half an oversweetened cup had restored Sophie enough for anecdote. "My cousin," she said, "used to tell me that ladies ought not to eat too much sugar, lest it ruin their pretty teeth and sour their pretty temperaments by souring the digestion -- and, I must assume, by giving them joy and energy to have thoughts in their pretty heads. He is a lawyer, quite bourgeois and quite detestable. That whole branch of the family is. I determined at the age of six to ignore all his advice as thoroughly as possible, and I have never regretted doing so."

Bahorel, laughing, toasted her. Laughing, she toasted herself with sugared coffee in reply.

Prouvaire, in thoughtful tones which the application of a little food and copious coffee had strengthened somewhat since his waking, replied, "It's a great pity that women must always be expected to guard their beauty at all costs! Beauty comes of truth. To be true to one's heart: that is beauty, in joy as in agony. All women are beautiful. But they're taught to put a banal notion of beauty upon an idol's shrine, and place it at the apex of life's priorities. You reject your cousin's idiocy, but to what end? The false constraints of society oblige even the most materially comfortable to make an unfair choice: eschew something for one principle, or embrace it for another?"

"In this case, to the end of sweet coffee to combat this hangover," said Sophie. "You're right, though. Although I will point out that this hardship, unlike some, is not exclusive to the female sex."

"It's true."

"If we have it harder than men -- and in this case, for a change, I am not certain we do -- then it is only because of the many men who seem to hold that women have no principles to weigh at all."

"Which makes them great ninnies," Bahorel put in comfortably. He accounted a few such men friends, but he would call any friend a ninny to his face, and had. "I believe most of them do think that you have principles, however; but that your critical faculties are not only weak, but easily overmastered by the mere presence of a pretty frock, or a male with opinions." He waggled his brows, and Sophie laughed aloud.

Prouvaire was scowling.

Bahorel turned to him. "Well?"

"Opinions," Prouvaire burst out, "are not the point. There are women of genius and artistic brilliance -- of course there are -- fewer than men, which may be due to differences of the feminine mind, but is certainly also due to a society which tells them that they ought not to involve themselves in matters of education or deep thought, or artistry that does not fit tidily within the blandest domestic sphere. But a woman ought not to be obliged to be capable of holding deep principles to be granted the rights and protections of a society which values her soul as well as her life. Centuries ago at least France valued the former. Now it is neither. We have buried the heart and the mind both beneath the soil of Respectability."

"I can't quite work out if I ought to feel insulted or complimented," said Sophie, amused. Prouvaire went dull red and buried his face in his wine cup. "But I agree, on the whole. Men and women both ought to have rights as individual citizens, independent of any question of accomplishments. They ought also to be expected to develop principles. If they neglect to do so, at least they must then be aware that this is a failing. I don't want any society which respects my soul by requiring me to ignore my brain."

"I could become a full Evadnist," Bahorel suggested, "and demonstrate my very genuine respect for your brain by calling you my queen in every sentence, and I your king." Prouvaire choked on his wine.

"You just want to annoy Enjolras," said Sophie, unruffled. Bahorel grinned.

"His face would be a picture."

"You would kill him with apoplexy," said Prouvaire, recovered, "and then our cause would be in difficulty."

Sophie plucked a slice of apple from Bahorel's plate. "I don't want to be a queen in any case. A citizen's rights are enough for me. Queens are tiresome, and not a one of them was a woman I'd give two pins to talk to. Give me bread and egalitarian freedom to be an eccentric."

Bahorel, to be egalitarian, stole half a bread roll from her plate. "If the monarchy is abolished," he goaded, "then every citizen is on the level of the king, every citizenness equal to a queen. Are we not to create the world we wish to see? Queen Sophie, by your very name I cheapen the Tuileries, I raise you to the pedestal of your worth, I shock the well-starched bourgeois hurrying past -- yes, you, hold your beak a little higher, frightened goose! -- and thus I demonstrate my ideals with my tongue, o gracious queen."

Sophie laughed. " _You're_ in a mood. Annoy your friends as you like, Hercule, but leave me out of it."

* * *

After breakfast they parted ways. Sophie wished to call upon her sister, a respectable fabric merchant's wife who considered herself a patron of Romanticism while being scandalized by half its radical devotees. Sophie grumbled about her timidity, but all the same she had forbidden Bahorel from speaking to Madame Filiatraut without her younger sister's express consent, after the second salon of hers that he had attended. Bahorel felt that he had behaved quite tamely, all things considered. Sophie was unmoved.

As for Jehan Prouvaire, he had expressed a desire for time alone, to wander and think. Bahorel had never understood how solitude could be restful, as it seemed to him inevitably stultifying, but he accepted that several of his friends inexplicably found it so. Accordingly, he bid Sophie au revoir at the door of a fiacre, Prouvaire at the gate of the Montparnasse Cemetery, and turned his own steps towards the rue Saint-Denis.

He occupied himself as he strolled by singing the _Ça Ira_ , and was pleased to find himself accompanied by a chorus of three gamins midway through the fourth verse. One of them proved himself more creative than the rest by extemporizing a few additional verses, with dubious scansion but great creativity and an astonishingly filthy vocabulary. Bahorel tossed them all coins, and the little bard an extra franc.

This interlude pleased him. He tore down a few posters advertising a new production of Racine's tired old _Phédre_ , and that refreshed him further. He proceeded to the Café Cerceau, where several of his friends among rue des Marais upholsterers were taking their usual midmorning break, and joined them for a half-bottle of wine and half-hour of gossip. They left to return to work, but several idlers remained for a game of billiards. Bahorel joined them, won the first game, and lost the second and third heartily to a skinny stick of a man with a mustache like a broom. After that entertaining interlude, and several minutes of pleasantly casual flirting with a table full of laundresses, he bid the Café Cerceau adieu and strolled onward. Saint-Denis had been restive lately, and he wanted to have a better look at its streets.

For lunch, he considered going to Father Rocque's to see certain friends, remembered that the most interesting and knowledgeable of them had taken themselves to Lyon for a few days, and determined instead to go to the Corinthe. The food was terrible, but the company often good. 

By that time he had carried himself south again across the Seine, and his path back north carried him near to his lodgings. He took the time to stop in. The rooms had emptied of hungover artists, although Mac-Keat and Routhier had jointly abandoned the drapery; and Martin had deposited, beneath the washstand, one of his formidably green stockings. Bahorel had never been able to determine why, precisely, he favored aggressive shades of green in his clothing, but Bahorel was hardly in a position to criticize such things. It did, at the least, make it easy to identify lost articles of his clothing.

Besides this inventory, he received the morning's mail from the concierge. A bootmaker's bill, a tailor's, a chandler's, a letter from Hilbert in Lyon, an envelope from his mother in the nearby countryside of Brignais. He read Hilbert's letter on the spot. It was worth sharing with Enjolras; he stuck it in his pocket, and his mother's missive alongside.

* * *

At the Corinthe, he found several familiar faces. Combeferre and Courfeyrac were already settled at one table, bickering amiably about the recent matter of the rue des Prouvaires royalists. The remains of a shared quiche lay between them. Enjolras, evidently the third party to the quiche, sat with a half-full plate at his elbow, pen in hand, thoughtful abstraction upon his face. Long familiarity with Madame Hucheloup's cooking enabled Bahorel to surmise that the quiche was probably worth ignoring; long familiarity with Enjolras enabled him to surmise that objections of taste had barely occurred to Enjolras. Courfeyrac or Combeferre had ordered the food and put a plate in front of him; he had thanked them vaguely, eaten absently, written two lines of rhetoric for every forkful, soon forgotten entirely about such mundanities as lunch; in an hour he would be surprised once again to notice quiche stone-cold beside him. That was the way of it with Enjolras. Bahorel was genially bemused by the entire notion, but that was nothing new between the two of them.

Joly and Grantaire, a little way off, were playing dominoes and sharing a bottle of wine. Gilles and Tribolet were in deep discussion beyond them, and further into the dingy room were Pepin and his collection of shopkeeper friends: staunch republicans and stauncher drinkers all. They hailed Bahorel with merriness probably improved by the brandies they were warming themselves with. He returned the greeting heartily, and swung by to clap Villemarette on the back and congratulate him on his new daughter. After only one toast to her health, however, he extricated himself to take the seat across from Enjolras.

Enjolras lifted a hand to him in greeting, without looking up from his pages. Bahorel waved to Matelote, ordered wine and a bowl of doubtless execrable soup, and slid Hilbert's letter under Enjolras's forearm. Enjolras blinked at it, and his blue eyes lifted to Bahorel's with a sudden intensity of inquiry. "Nothing urgent, but of interest," he replied. Enjolras's face smoothed. He nodded once, and returned to writing. 

For lack of anything more entertaining to do, Bahorel returned to peering at his friend's writing upside-down. It was a hurried secretary's hand, as usual, but far more legible than Bahorel's father's -- or Bahorel's own, come to that. "A pamphlet on that charming new notion of Périer's?"

Enjolras crossed out a few words, hesitated, crossed them out again and more decisively. "Mm. A response is needed. The usual voices have been loud in defense, but they need not have the floor to themselves."

"Oh!" said Courfeyrac suddenly, interrupting himself in the middle of an eloquent denunciation of Henri d'Artois's morals, ancestry, and taste in flags. "I nearly forgot. When we bring that to the printer, Enjolras, we ought to get a few extra copies made. I promised to bring some to Louise Santerre."

"For her husband's singing circle?" inquired Joly. "Ha, double three. Let's see you beat that."

"Ace," said Grantaire. Joly swore, laughing.

"Yes," returned Courfeyrac, "most likely, but she asked for them for her own little salon."

Enjolras scoffed quietly. "We will print them, of course, but will it do any good? They are not serious; they never listen. They are only playing at rebellion."

"You're wrong, Enjolras." Courfeyrac was half-laughing, but serious beneath. "Light-minded, yes, but there are committed hearts in that crowd. Louise asked for more pamphlets of yours especially -- for your eloquence, don't look at me like that. You only think they don't listen because they choose to flirt with you instead of saying so. You ought to flirt back now and again, my dear fellow. I know you detest the game, but it would make your life much easier."

"Enjoyment of lighter things does not discount fervor," Combeferre contributed mildly, and with an ironic look at Courfeyrac. "But I agree. Perhaps they won't be good for much, but then again, perhaps they will."

Grantaire snorted. "Ah, well, so it goes -- you had better accustom yourself to disappointment! You expect Diana, but Paris is full of Liberae. All women are superficial. So are men, don't mistake me. The grisette in her garret, the bourgeoise in her salon, the grocer at his counter, from the sot to the marquis, they all thirst for entertainment. Show a few coins or a little distraction, it's easy enough to carry their minds from your high principles to the glitter in the dirt."

"Six, and your turn," said Joly, lifting his brows, and refilled Grantaire's glass.

Enjolras ignored Grantaire as if he hadn't spoken. He continued to look faintly disgruntled, but Enjolras was not a man to let personal pique interfere with gaining allies for the cause. It was one of several reasons why Bahorel was content to follow his lead, despite his foibles. "Very well. I yield to your judgment, my friends. If I am not the man best suited to the task of recruiting them, I cede any role in it happily. A dozen, Courfeyrac? Fine. They are yours to deliver."

" _I_ have the sense to enjoy it," Courfeyrac answered, settling back in his chair.

"The solution is simple," Bahorel put in, now that the main issue seemed to be resolved. He grinned across the table. "If you're so troubled by these fluttering female eyelashes and breathless female swoons -- no need to glare at me so, Enjolras, I am extrapolating from the words you're not saying -- then you need only wear a bag over your head. It will spare you the sighing demoiselles, and meantime you may be assured that everyone who pauses to listen is indeed drawn only by your words."

"Or by the sight of a madman with a bag on his head," put in Joly helpfully, and reached for the wine.

"All right, enough." Combeferre put a hand on the back of Enjolras's chair, and leaned over his shoulder for a better look at the pages in front of him. "Bahorel, run that experiment yourself if you like. Enjolras, are you done with this draft? If the emendations are only minor, we can have it to the printer today."

"Nonsense," answered Bahorel, as Enjolras passed Combeferre several sheets of paper with an explanatory murmur. "I will be here to comfort the poor ladies whether they're deprived of our angel's face or merely stricken by his glower. Ha, see, Courfeyrac agrees with me."

Combeferre rolled his eyes as he gathered up the papers and tapped them into order. "Oh, well, if _Courfeyrac_ agrees." 

"Courfeyrac agrees that the comfort of ladies is an important matter to safeguard," answered that fellow lightly, "and even more important is spurring the discomfort of any who wish to wish to reflect upon the perversions of principle inherent in our dear monarch's crown."

"On that latter, we are agreed," said Enjolras, bending his head once again over his work. This time it was a sheet with a scant paragraph in Feuilly's spidery copperplate, enclosing several pages in an unfamiliar hand.

Reminded, Bahorel drew out his mother's letter. He tilted his chair back, slit the envelope, and began to read.

The letter followed his mother's usual habit: it was effusive and tart by turns, written in small but very neat handwriting, and extremely long. Letters are a medium in which one cannot be interrupted, and Mme. Bahorel exercised this advantage, a rare one in her family, to its utmost. She began with a meditation upon an unfamiliar beetle she had found in her garden; proceeded to greetings; skipped thence to exhortations to keep warm and healthy; detoured briefly into predictions for the year's barley and apple crops; returned to provide a litany of news about his various siblings and cousins; indulged in a full page of gossip about the neighbor's youngest son, who had always had a great predilection for mischief but too little wit to get away with it properly; segued into a monologue upon Rousseau's noble savage, childrearing, the triumph of Haiti and the tragedy of Dominica's British rule, and an extremely fanciful speculation upon the Mikmaq of Quebec; dropped in an offhand exhortation for more grandchildren; and concluded, with admirable rhetorical continuity, with a return to the beetle, and a request for him to inquire of his scholarly friends whether this was a new pest worthy of worry, or merely a specimen of academic interest and little beauty. The beetle in question was enclosed, quite dead and somewhat squashed, within a twist of notepaper.

Bahorel flipped back to the first page. "Here, Combeferre. A consultation for you." He tossed the little paper packet across the table. "From my mother, in Brignais: an entomological inquiry. In her words. 'My dear little Death To Aristocrats--'"

As he had hoped, that got the attention of the entire group. Even Enjolras looked up sharply from his writing.

"That cannot _possibly_ be your legal name," said Combeferre.

"No, I suppose he might be old enough, if barely. The edict was '03," said Bossuet.

"Sadly, Combeferre is correct." Bahorel tilted his chair at a slightly more precarious angle. "Too young by a month and a half. My mother was set upon it, but Bonaparte's law prevented the flower of republican nomenclature that flourished in her heart. Legally, I became Jean Hercule Marie. We were all named Jean or Jeanne: thus she spites a Corsican. But only my most boring uncle calls me Jean, and to tell you the truth I believe that's only so he doesn't have to keep anyone's name straight. Maman only calls me Hercule when she's annoyed. You should meet my littlest sister: a tiny slip of a thing, Jeanne to the law, Marguerite to the family, and Strive With A Good Heart For The Republic to her mother since her infant days. Illegally nicknamed all her life."

"I'm surprised you don't use it commonly," said Joly. "Think of the passersby you could scandalize."

"Oh, I have." Bahorel lifted his glass towards Joly, grinning. "I assure you of it. But Sophie flatly refused to use it. She said I could pick whatever first name I liked, but she refused to yell Death To Aristocrats across the street, nor to murmur it in bed. She is less dedicated than some men here, I fear." He judged that to waggle his eyebrows at Enjolras would be a step too far, and that to do so at Grantaire would be cruel. He chose Courfeyrac instead, who laughed. "I am nothing if not consistent -- to have one personal name with one friend, another with another, all in the same city, what rot! Nicknames are another matter, family will have their own way--"

" _Stare decisis et non amicos movere_ ," Courfeyrac contributed wisely in an undertone, and Bahorel threw a piece of quiche crust at him for lawyer talk. Courfeyrac yelped and brushed crumbs from his coat, which Bahorel admitted was a bit of tailoring worth taking care about.

"--I insist upon wearing the same face to all friends," he concluded, these antics having in no way required him to pause in his speech. "Thus: Hercule. A worthy dog."

* * *

The afternoon passed swiftly. Bahorel spent an enjoyable while practicing singlesticks with Grantaire, Gilles, and Tribolet. All of them were more or less of a level, which made for excellent bouts. Bahorel finished the afternoon pleasantly tired, and only a little bruised thanks to the combination of skill and practice padding. He took himself off to the Musain arm in arm with Grantaire, bickering amicably about a scattered collection of subjects which had begun with Diogenes but, in true Grantairean fashion, worked its way through most of their acquaintances and most of the ancient world by the time they reached the Place Saint-Michel.

In the back room, Bahorel commandeered a chair for himself and another for Feuilly, who had yet to arrive, and seized the opportunity to order enough dinner for two hungry striplings. Grantaire wandered off to greet Bossuet with a harangue which mostly worked itself out to something complimentary. 

Contentedly, he set to work on the heap of bread and cheese and ham which Louison set before him.

The evening passed exactly as he had hoped. Feuilly had enjoyed Bentham's works as much as Bahorel had expected he might, and together they wrangled about utilitarian morals for a good hour. When the conversation was flagging, Bahorel turned it to an opening for discussion of the Partition. Not his most subtle effort, but with Feuilly it rarely needed to be. Buoyed by the twin influences of his fervor and the second cup of wine, he hardly demurred when Bahorel pressed him to share in his dinner, which Bahorel represented as an unnecessarily copious quantity brought by Louison's mistake or miscalculation. 

Feuilly had his pride, which Bahorel respected, but he was always careful with his coin in winter. Young lovers' hearts turned to tokens and fripperies in the budding warmth of spring; February was still too dreary for much work to come to a fanmaker's doorstep. Bahorel, on the other hand, got his allowance in all seasons. He was of the opinion that there was no possible better use for it than in assisting friends as much as they would allow. By the time Feuilly had wound down to a wearier indignation about Constantine's betrayal, both of them had consumed a good meal's worth. Prouvaire had joined them with cemetery dirt still on his unfashionable boots to polish off the last scraps.

Bahorel left them discussing Emilia Plater. The night was clear and cold. He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets for warmth, and began to whistle Gossec's ditty for Marat and Le Pelletier as he strode homewards.

A good day, he thought with satisfaction. Quite a good day indeed, and no reason to think the next would not be likewise.

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes, in more or less chronological order:
> 
> \- It is entirely up to the reader what you think Bahorel and Jehan and Sophie were getting up to at that party. Whatever it was, they all had fun!
> 
> \- Sophie owes her name to tumblr user pilferingapples's version of Bahorel's Laughing Mistress. I wanted to come up with my own name for her, but I found that I kept picturing her as a non-cartoony version of Pilf's drawings, so it seemed silly to stand on stubbornness about the name. Thanks to Pilf for giving me permission to use her!
> 
> \- Sophie's Latin translates to "(in spite of) everything having happened, she's the most beloved." It's not a quote from anything; I just wanted to show that she had a decently Classical education too.
> 
> \- The Evadnistes were an actual splinter of Saint-Simonism, led by a guy named Ganneau, and everything I know about them comes courtesy of Pilferingapples. They were generally radical, and believed in equality of the sexes, which Ganneau expressed among other dramatic ways by calling his mistress (wife? I'm not sure) his queen while she called him her king.
> 
> \- All the streets are real, and Bahorel's route is (I think) more or less reasonable for somebody athletic who has the day to wander at leisure. (If I'm wrong, kindly pretend I forgot to mention him catching an omnibus here or there.) 
> 
> \- If you don't recognize the name of a café, I probably made it up. If you don't recognize the name of a person, I probably also made them up. Exceptions to that are [Gauthier](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9ophile_Gautier) and [Mac-Keat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Maquet) and [Nerval](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_de_Nerval), who were all real Romantics of the bouzingo crowd -- and Nerval did in fact have a skull cup, although I don't know if Gauthier and Mac-Keat (aka Maquet) ever passed out together on anybody's couch -- and Pepin, who is the source of the nitric acid at the canonical barricade, although I have no idea if he spent any time drinking in revolutionary cafés.
> 
> \- I know nothing about the rules and scoring of dominoes. 
> 
> \- The 1803 law they're talking about is kind of fantastic as a historical anecdote. People were apparently naming their kids (and renaming themselves) exactly the sort of thing Bahorel talks about -- I got all those names from [this list](http://www.nancy.cc/2011/09/09/revolution-era-names-in-france/) \-- in sufficient number that Napoleon made an edict stating that people were only allowed to name themselves after saints and notable people from ancient history. The law wasn't taken off the books until the 1970s.
> 
> \- Speaking of names, thanks to all the folks in Skype chat one night for the discussion that led to Bahorel's multitude of names! I cannot for the life of me remember everyone that was there, I confess.
> 
> \- Working-class singing circles were apparently hotbeds of secret republicanism in the barrière cafés.
> 
> \- Courfeyrac is playing off a legal principle: _stare decisis et non quieta movere_ , "to stand by decisions and not disturb the undisturbed," which is the principle by which courts mostly rely on precedent. All I know about it comes from skimming Wikipedia.
> 
> \- Gossec's song appears to have no easily abbreviated title, but it's called the "Patriotic Song on the Unveiling of the Busts of Marat and Le Pelletier," and I got it from [this](http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/browse/songs/#) cool little site of Revolutionary music.
> 
> \- Deep thanks go to a whole lot of tumblr folks posting meta and historical research, and I cannot begin to keep track of how many of them I owe a debt to for making posts I used either directly or in a back-of-the-brain way. Pilferingapples, tenlittlebullets, edwarddespard, berrysphase, robertawickham, plinytheyounger, amarguerite, grumpyfaceurn, gauzythreads, and carmarthenthefan should definitely be included, and I'm sure I'm leavng out a bunch of people. Thanks also to Carpe Horas and the Abaissé forums for their many useful resources.


End file.
